California Curiosities
In order to get in the practice of engaging with history, whether through reading or topics presented in class, I encourage you to get in the habit of asking questions. Approaching a history book with the basic, "What is this book about?" focuses your attention and allows you to read with purpose. Skim and summarize the author's thesis, list the author's major points of evidence, then read carefully to evaluate strengths and weaknesses. Finally, after reading, be sure to ask YOUR OWN QUESTIONS. Every week, write down some questions that reflect your curiosity--questions raised by a book you read, or that you bring to the topic. You will be asked to present one on of your questions, along with ideas about how you would go about answering it, and to develop a short bibliography with help from the Oviatt Library. Guidelines and examples below.
Cold War Era Bomb Shelter; IBM's 150 "Extra" Engineers; and Fairchild Semiconductor's "Traitoros Eight"who, at a time when loyalty
was considered an important quality in employees, left the controlling William Shockley's first semiconductor company to form their own.
What are your questions about California's history during the Gold Rush, or the Gilded and Progressive Eras, the Great Depression, WWII years, or the Cold War Fifties? In the upcoming weeks you will share one of your questions with the class, and in three other weeks, post questions you find especially important on Canvas.
Every week after completing your reading and looked over your notes, jot down significant questions you have about the weekly topic. Your posted or presented questions should relate to the week's topic and/ or reading. The purpose of this exercise is to help you develop a habit of asking questions--to be proactive with your questions, and at the same time, regarding California, to be able to find answers in the Oviatt collections and online databases. Please turn in a typed question, how you might go about answering it (what sources), a hypothesis about what you think the answer to your question is, and a short bibliography divided up into Primary and Secondary Source lists.
Name, Class, Date Assignment Completed Question: Why did the "best and the brightest" scientists and engineers break away from William Shockley's first semiconducor to form Fairchild in 1957? Hypothesis: I have read a little about this, so I expect the "Fairchild "traitorous eight" left William Shcokley's (1910-1989) company becuase he did not give them enough freedom to explore and implement their own ideas. Then, too, in the post WWII era in which the Civil Rights' struggle was heating up, father-of-the- Transister Shockley was publicly racist. Why did they form their own company? Why they were so moved to leave at a time when loyalty was a respected employee characteristic? What were the specific reasons these men left and founded Fairchild? How might I answer this Question? First, I would look for documents on the company, but mostly, I would answer this question with autobiographies of the eight who started Fairchild. I have searched for "documents" on the Web, for recent sources via JStor, and then for primary (autobiographies) and secondary (biographies, histories) with World Cat. Please use these databases, and feel free to add any others you find important. (Remember, these Oviatt Databases include tools for building a bibliography, use them and use Chicago Style citations.) First of all, then, looking for perhaps a collection of primary sources on the web, I googled "Fairchild documents" and found the Computer History Museum in Mountain View! They house original Fairchild Notebooks, not really what I am looking for, and they use a 1962 company quote: "People with knowledge, with training, with curiosity – these are the people of Research and Development at Fairchild Semiconductor. Theirs is the endless search for answers … answers to the questions which arise in the day-to-day quest to advance the technology." Leadwire, Fairchild Semiconductor, August 1962 Their quote does emphasize the researchers themselves. I did find interviews and a documentary film, but not autobiographies. there are biographies, so I would probably begin there in answering my question. I would begin with Arthur Rock's interview, and the interviews with the "pioneers," as well as the 50th Celebration and the film on the founding. Gordon Moore has a biography, as does Robert Noyce. These would all answer my question about why they left--and it also makes me wonder about Shockley's response and life afterward, since he died in 1989. While I was hoping for autobiography, it will probably be easy to access interviews and films with the founders. Bibliography Primary Sources(web "documents" and worldcat) "The Fairchild Semiconductor Collection of Notebooks and Technical Papers," Computer History Museum, 1401 North Shoreline Drive, Mountain View, CA/ https://www.computerhistory.org/There are employee papers and interviews and pictures, some Fairchild Papers, at the Online Archive of California _____________________ (World Cat) Fairchild Semiconductor, 1957-1977. 1978. Allen, Steve. 1926. Steve Allen photographs of Fairchild Semiconductor. Crowder, Paul, and Mark Monroe. 2010. The real revolutionaries. [United States?]: [publisher not identified]. Fairchild (Firm). 1959. Fairchild semiconductor employee papers. Fairchild Semiconductor 50th Anniversary. 2007. Rock, Arthur, and David C. Brock. 2002. Oral history interview with Arthur Rock: Beckman Heritage Project. Silicon Valley History Online.Dr. Andrew S. Grove, 1968. Intel Museum Archives, 1968. <http://content.scu.edu/svhocdm/image/721.jpg>. Sporck, Charles E. 1995. Interviews with pioneers of the semiconductor industry for the book SPINOFF. Secondary Sources (JStor and World Cat) Berlin, Leslie.The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Crowder, Paul, and Mark Monroe. The real revolutionaries. [United States?]: [publisher not identified]. 2010. Greene, Frank, Julieanna L. Richardson, and Scott Stearns. The HistoryMakers video oral history with Frank Greene, Lécuyer, Christophe, and David C. Brock. Makers of the microchip: a documentary history of Fairchild Semiconductor. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 2010. Lojek, Bo. History of semiconductor engineering. Springer E-Books. Berlin: Springer. 2007. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=337140.McLaughlin, John R., Walter Cronkite, Ward Winslow, Donald Kennedy, Frederick Emmons Terman, David Packard, William R. Hewlett, et al. Silicon
McLaughlin, John R., et al.Silicon Valley: Center of a Modern Renaissance, 1890s-1970s. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1999. Rao, Arun, and Piero Scaruffi. A history of Silicon Valley: the greatest creation of wealth in the history of the planet, 1900-2013. 2013. Stanford Silicon Valley Archives.The Legacy of Shockley Semiconductor. 2005. Thackray, Arnold, and David C. Brock.Moore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary. New York: Basic Books, a member of
Walker, Rob. 2005. Fairchild, the Fairchild chronicles. Palo Alto, CA: Panalta, Inc. |
Skunk Works
